They speak to us in memories. Have you ever heard your grandmother's voice in your head, counseling one course of action or another?

They speak to us through their deeds. Through stories, through their remembered actions, the ancestors tell us today how to behave or how not to behave.

They speak to us through their words and songs. We live by the Lore, and through the Lore their words and ways come down to us. In oral cultures, memory is passed down in songs. Many covens have a Book of Shadows; we have a songbook.

They speak to us through their artifacts. Although here in North America, relations between First Nations communities and archaeologists have (and understandably so) been contentious, the Mapuche of Bolivia love the archaeologists. “Through them, the ancestors speak to us,” they say.

In the old Witch language, the constellation that we know as Orion was called Eofor-ðring: literally, “Boar-throng.”

We don't know why.

It's likely that there was once a story to explain the name. Doubtless this Ever-thring (as we would say today), this throng of boars, belonged to—or was defeated, or captured, by—some god or hero, and ended up in the sky as a result.

We'll never know.

Boars were meaningful to the ancestors. Their likeness appeared on battle-gear. Boars are fiercely protective, and nothing stops them. You can always recognize a boar-spear because it's got a cross-bar. If it didn't, the spitted boar would drive his own body up along the spear-shaft, just to get at you. Seriously.

In Old Norse mythology, the boar belongs to the phallic god Frey, whom some would identify (controversially) with the God of Witches. His name means “lord.” The Anglo-Saxons had the same word with the same meaning—fréa—but whether to them it also was the name of a god we simply don't, and probably never will, know.

So much has been lost since the old days, like the story of the Ever-thring. What has come down to us has come down to us in pieces.